Spell for a Township Trustee

who maintains funding for the volunteer fire department and maybe
responds to voicemails about potholes on the unpaved roads and the
disappearance of pullovers every May during overflows that exhume
a body or two, sometimes just chalky femurs which deputies report
as conspiracy despite no murder watching from the stripped oaks for
whom blight is reprieve from the machinations of graveyard registers:
By or on the first Tuesday after November 1, fill the rounded squares
with cheap medium point ink, ensuring no strangers attempt to hang
your wishes. Then, encourage friends and family to whom you speak,
else buzzards may darken the skies and disable the wind with hissing
that recalls the church yard after service, when the aunts discuss what
they know instead of what they do not and complain about men who
eat kale while a mockingbird alights a near low branch and instigates.

Hailing from the farm valleys of west Appalachia, Ben Kline lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, toiling away on his full-length manuscript and two chapbooks, drinking just the right amount of bourbon and more coffee than seems wise. His work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Toe Good, Rappahannock Review, Grist Online Arts, Riggwelter, The Mantle, Ghost City Review, apt, ImageOutWrite Vol. 7, The Offing, Impossible Archetype and many more. You can read more at www.benkline.online.